


Living Ghosts

by BloodFromTheThorn



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:21:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23689873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodFromTheThorn/pseuds/BloodFromTheThorn
Summary: On a mission gone all sorts of wrong, McCree finds himself looking at a ghost long thought lost. It's a shame he's going to die here too.
Relationships: Jesse McCree & Genji Shimada, Jesse McCree & Reaper | Gabriel Reyes
Comments: 2
Kudos: 64





	Living Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> This is hot garbage but I have work tomorrow and I need to go to bed so it's the best garbage I've got. I'm so in love with McCree's relationship with Reaper.

In what felt like it was probably a new record for Overwatch, the mission had managed to go to shit in precisely 3 minutes and 42 seconds. McCree knew this because he’d had an antsy feeling in the back of his skull ever since he’d set foot on the transport, and as soon as they’d arrived in Switzerland he’d been counting down the seconds until something blew up in their faces. And, because his luck really just was _that_ good, that unavoidable cock up was, of course, a sniper doing their level best to blow his head off his shoulders. 

Or, maybe not quite their level best because for all that McCree considered himself to be a somewhat-savvy tactician, it took him a shamefully long amount of time to realise that the shooter had very successfully cut him off from the rest of the team. 

“Genji, any luck with this goddamn sniper?” He hissed into his comm as he ducked around the edge of another building, only just clearing the corner as bullets peppered the brickwork behind him. He’d barely been here ten minutes and he was already sick to the teeth of Talon goons. “I’m miles away from you guys.”

“I’m working on it,” came the response, Genji’s voice level and focused in the way that it got when most of his attention was on the battle in front of him, which was both a blessing and a curse depending on the situation. With everything else fucked six ways from Sunday, McCree figured he might as well leave him to it. 

“Rein, how are you and Soldier getting on?” 

“Worry less about us and more about getting your ass back here McCree,” Soldier replied with his typical disdainful authority, punctuated by the thundering roar of his pulse rifle. As always, McCree felt a thrill of truancy run up his spine at his voice, the result of spending his formative years under Jack Morrison’s thumb and having to follow the man’s orders - now that Jack wasn’t his superior, he couldn’t help but petulantly rebel. 

Still, the man did have something of a point. “I’m pinned down. Soon as I break cover that sniper’s gonna take my head off. If I try and go the other way, I’ll run right into those Talon reinforcements coming in from the West.”

“Tracer, head towards McCree’s position,” Soldier ordered. “Regroup with him and get back here together, I don’t care how.”

“Negative on that,” McCree said immediately, feeling the bite in his voice and not regretting it at all. “There’s no clear path to me and I’m doin’ just fine. Don’t you worry ‘bout little ole’ me. Just get that payload secured and we can all get the hell out of here.”

“ _McCree,_ ” Soldier hissed, venomous.

“Look, you can spend your time arguing with me, or you can get that goddamn payload cleared Morrison. Make up your mind and let me get back to keeping myself alive, yeah?”

“I can- make it to you Jess,” Tracer’s voice came over the comm, interspersed with a strange hitch that usually meant she was doing something not-quite-natural with the timeline. “I think I see a- way through.”

“ _No_ , go back! Keep these idiots from flanking Rein. I’ll make my way back to you as soon as Genji gets this sniper off me but I’m doin’ just _fine_ on my own.” As he spoke, he slipped around another corner and took down the two Talon agents that spun to greet him with a pair of flawless shots as though it would somehow prove his point. Any shots he took instantly gave away his position to anyone inside of a half-mile radius given Peacekeeper’s distinctive _crack_ , but if he could keep himself moving then he’d stay ahead of the worst of it. 

“Jess,” Tracer said quietly, audibly upset but trying to keep herself firm even as a pleading thread slipped into her tone. McCree bit his lip, and waited her out. After a long stretch of silence, she sighed softly. “You better make it back here, you hear me?”

“Don’t you worry none,” he said as lightly as he could, jerking back into the shadow of a building when he realised he was straying into an open sightline. “I’m a lucky bastard, remember?”

Even if anything did go horribly wrong, McCree trusted that Angie would see them all patched up before they even made it back to the transport - not that he was about to say that, of course. Angela always got tetchy if any of them dared to admit they used her near-magical healing abilities as a safety net for pulling stupid stunts in the field. Still, it was comforting to know that she was around when there was a very real possibility he was about to wind up with a hole in his gut. 

And, of course, he reminded himself as a high calibre bullet ripped through the brickwork directly behind him, even the fabled Mercy would be of little use to him if he got his head taken off by a jumped up Talon wannabe with a fancy sniper rifle. 

Time blurred a little then, as it often did when he was just existing between heartbeats, gun in his hand and quick eyes always moving. He’d long since learned not to let adrenaline overpower his system when he had a close call, and he firmly did _not_ think about what it meant that even dodging bullets had grown so familiar to his body that it barely elicited more than an annoyed grunt. It was routine, of the worst possible kind, and he couldn’t bear to admit even to himself that in his years of exile since Overwatch had fallen, he might just have missed this. 

What he hadn’t considered was that those years might have done more harm than mere loneliness. After nearly a decade of having to watch his own back and sleeping with one eye open, working with the old guard had him falling immediately back on his old bad habits - he didn’t even notice Reaper approaching until the man had a shotgun levelled at the back of his head. 

It was sheer reflex that saved him, dropping into a half crouch that let the first shot sail clean over his head, ruffling his hair as it passed. In the same movement he twisted on his heel, swinging up his metal arm to knock the shotgun wide before Reaper could readjust his aim even as he raised Peacekeeper to defend himself. It was a flawless move, perfectly executed with the agility and strength a lifetime of training had afforded him, but-

-He didn’t see the second gun. He knew it was a stupid, _stupid_ mistake even as the heat of the blast washed across bare skin, even as buckshot tore through his armour plating and buried itself into the meat of his abdomen, even as his legs went numb beneath him. For a single, glorious heartbeat, the pain didn’t reach him. 

Then it _did._

The air was punched out of him in one swift blow, and didn't come back even when he gasped for it, flopping helplessly back against the concrete as all the strength bled out of him in an instant. It felt like fire, wrapping fierce, burning fingers around his ribs, even while the rest of his body turned to unresponsive ice. 

“ _Shit_ ,” he managed to hiss, twitching his right hand vaguely in the direction of the hole in his side as though it could ever possibly be enough to stem such an extensive wound. He didn’t even need to look at it to know in an instant that it was certainly fatal - too much damage, too much blood. Angela might be able to save him if she got there _right now_ , but he didn’t bank on that happening. He hadn’t reported being in danger and if he tried to yell for help now, one of those shotguns would take off his head, no doubt. 

Above him, Reaper let out an awful approximation of a laugh, harsh and grating, and unclicked his mask. “Hello again kid.”

Hearing that voice again, recognising the sneer that lingered at the corner of his twisted mouth- It was too much. How was he supposed to fight against a man he had been very carefully conditioned to shut up and listen to since he was a lanky teenager with a vicious mouth and a worse attitude? This man had _raised_ him. Defeat curled cool around McCree’s brain, and with a sharp exhale, he let himself sink bonelessly into the ground. "Figures," he rasped quietly, more to himself than anything. "Fifteen years of following your advice and in the end you're the one that shoots me. What a joke.”

He could still remember that conversation as clearly as if it had happened yesterday, right down to the musty smell of the locker room where he had first seen the twisted mass of scar tissue that marred Reyes’ left shoulder. He’d seen bullet holes before of course, but something about the old wound had attracted his attention - in hindsight, it was probably because the man it was attached to seemed like the kind of person that bullets wouldn’t dare to touch.

Observant as he was, it had taken Reyes all of three seconds to notice Jesse’s staring and offer him a sharp smile. _‘Word of warning kid,’_ he’d said lightly, _‘Don’t get shot. Hurts like a bitch even after the doc’s done with you.’_

It was one of the first pieces of advice Reyes had ever given him and maybe that was why he’d held onto it for as long as he had, despite its being completely unnecessary. Jesse had been dodging bullets for years before Reyes had dragged him from the smoking ruins of Deadlock and as much as he’d been a largely careless and wild creature, he’d always put a lot of effort into not getting his brains blown out. If the world wanted him dead then it was just going to have to try a little harder - that was what he’d always told himself. 

All the same, he’d taken Reyes’ words to heart. After every battle he managed to walk away from without any new holes, he’d remembered that conversation and offered wordless thanks to the man for all his help in training him to heed the advice. Even after the man was dead and buried - or so everyone thought - McCree had held true to the edict he had been given. He’d been beaten, stabbed, drowned, burned, blown to hell and back and yet somehow, miraculously, bullets had only ever grazed him. Ana had called it the Devil’s own luck when she was still around to say anything about it at all. For his part, McCree had long since realised that his faint immortality was only ever another curse. 

Above where he lay sprawled out and panting, the creature wearing Reyes’ face sneered. “What can I say? You used to be faster on the draw _mijo_.”

“ _Don’t,_ ” Jesse snapped back, his resignation to the situation burning out in an instant under the weight of sudden, overwhelming rage. If he’d had the strength to draw breath, he would have lunged for Reaper then and there. “You don’t get to call me that you bastard,” he gasped out instead, twitching ineffectually forwards before sagging back. “You lost that right when you betrayed everything we stood for.”

“Is that what they told you?” The voice was a thin, rasping noise that grated against some primal survival instinct tucked away deep in McCree’s brain, but it was still recognisably _Gabe_. For all the years that he'd wished he could speak to him just one more time, just to hear that voice, only for the man to reappear now like some twisted cosmic joke-

McCree had never wanted to die, but this was worse than any of his imaginings. 

“It’s what I _saw_ , Reyes,” he snarled, because if this was to be his end, then he might as well take this one opportunity to get all the hurt and rage and pain off his chest. “You’d been deteriorating for months - years - by the time I left. Jack wasn’t innocent either, but you’re not the fucking victim here.”

Reaper laughed, tipping his head back with the force of it. “Oh you have no idea.”

McCree wanted to respond, but death was lingering at the back of his throat and he nearly choked on the words when they tried to come up. The blood painting his side had spread impossibly far across the cracked paving stones around him, glinting in the dying sunlight. Maybe he didn’t have enough time for his anger after all. 

But he still had to try for some answers. 

“Why did you do it?” The question was said quietly, more into the dirt under his cheek than to the wraith standing over him. “Why pretend you were dead? Join Talon?”

“You don’t have nearly enough time left on this Earth for me to answer that _mijo_.”

He wanted to be angry again, wanted to re-summon the fury that had gripped him at hearing that word being mangled by a man he had once loved like family, but it didn’t come. All he could manage was a bone deep weariness and the unshakeable sense that in another life, another time, with a bit more kindness and a little less hurt, he and Jack could have saved Gabriel. Maybe in another universe, none of this had to happen. 

“You could have come to me,” he said aloud, knowing in his bones that it was true. No matter what had happened, he never would have turned Gabe away. “I would have helped you.”

“Of course,” Reaper sneered, scarred lips pulling back over black teeth in a snarl, “That’s why you ran away. To _help_ me.”

After all this time and all the hurt that had passed between them, the jab shouldn’t have stung as much as it did. But Jesse was who he was, and he’d half-regretted leaving from the moment he’d made up his mind to do so - he’d known he was abandoning his family right when they needed him most. If he’d been stronger, he might have been able to stomach it but he could see where things were going and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to bear being caught between Jack and Gabriel when things got ugly. Coward to the core, he’d chosen to run.

“I didn’t want to leave you,” he said instead of trying to explain. Reyes wasn’t going to forgive him anyway, but he might as well hear the apology. “I just couldn’t stay. I’m _sorry_.”

“You think that makes it better?”

Jesse knew it didn’t, but he didn’t have the energy left to say so. The edges of his vision were getting dark, the world collapsing in on itself until the only things that were left were Jesse, Reyes, and the river of blood between them. It could almost have been poetic if McCree hadn't known it would be the last thing he'd ever see.

So instead of trying to answer him, McCree fixed his eyes on the ruined canvas of Reyes' face and tried to find any trace of the man he had once loved like a father. Black, unfeeling eyes stared back at him, blank of any emotion, and Jesse felt something deep inside himself finally lay down and fall quiet. For the first time since he was fifteen with a gun in his hand and an innocent man dead at his feet, his burning need to live, to stand up and keep fighting, no matter the cost or the pain, finally, _finally_ cut out. It was enough of a relief that it hurt. 

Reyes seemed to see it too, whatever expression McCree was wearing cluing him in, because he tucked his shotguns away under his cloak and squatted down where he stood. “Giving up _mijo_? Doesn’t seem your style.”

He would have laughed, if he still could, but instead he simply twitched his lips in a vague approximation of a grin. “Gotta happen sometime,” he breathed. There was a beat of strange silence before he added, “I’m glad you’re here _jefe_.”

As a scared little lost boy, he’d stupidly hoped that he’d never have to leave Reyes’ side until the day he died. Funny, how little things like that could come back to haunt you.

“That’s stupid even for you,” the wraith muttered, but his expression didn’t seem vicious. That was strange too - there was so much between them that Reyes could use to hurt him, now when he had nothing left, but he didn’t seem inclined to reach for any of it. Instead, he crouched and he watched and he made no attempt to scorn McCree’s misguided loyalties. 

“Always been dumb,” he responded eventually, though reality was starting to slip from his fingers and he wasn’t sure how long it had been since Reyes had spoken. Probably not long, really, or backup would have arrived by now. Distantly, he wondered what was taking them so long. 

As if summoned by his thoughts alone, Reaper’s head snapped up to look at something beyond Jesse’s sharply narrowed field of vision, a scowl creeping across his face at whatever he saw there. “It looks like your little friends will be here sooner than I planned,” he said after another impossible moment, turning back to McCree with an unreadable expression on his scarred face. “Gonna have to cut this reunion short.”

With a casualness that still managed to hurt after all this time, he pulled out one of his shotguns and pressed the barrel to McCree’s forehead. Unable to move, or even speak, Jesse just blinked slowly, taking in Gabe’s face one last time and wishing with every inch of whatever was left of his soul that he’d been strong enough to save him from this. Even if it would have gotten himself killed sooner, even if it would have changed _nothing_ , he should have done more. 

McCree closed his eyes. 

* * *

Waking up felt like he was surfacing from the bottom of a deep, dark lake. The parts of his body that he could feel felt cool and still, and the parts that he couldn’t were so far away he was only distantly aware of their absence. He knew there was probably something wrong in that - he’d been in some form of pain for his entire adult life and it was unlikely he suddenly felt better now - but it was hard to care when he could feel nothing but the steady beating of his own heart in his chest. 

There were voices too, he realised eventually, starting as a low hum on the edge of his senses but building over time until he could hear the differences in tone that indicated different people were speaking. He vaguely recognised a low growl that instantly raised an irritation he didn’t quite understand, followed by a gentle melodic tone that soothed his nettled emotions immediately, despite the obvious anger marring the voice. 

_Mercy_ , his mind supplied quietly. _That’s Mercy_. There was a name somewhere too, but it swam out of reach before he could grasp it and he let it go with a slow exhale. 

Another voice then, loud and invasive but not nearly so angry as the other two. Without meaning too, McCree smiled slightly to himself - that person was too familiar not to be a kind of family and even if he couldn’t immediately place a name or a face to it, no doubt it meant he was safe. He could rest here for a little longer and that voice would watch over him while he couldn’t do it himself without ever faltering in his guard. 

“He’s waking up,” another voice said, bright as a bell, suddenly crystal clear and right beside him, so close that he felt his body seize in a desperate attempt at retreat when none of his limbs had reported in for some time. Hands were on him then; more voices, more noise. He twisted, trying to get them off, he wanted them _gone_ _please stop touching him-_

“ _McCree!_ Calm down, it’s us! It’s Overwatch!” It was that gruff voice again, the one he didn’t like, and in that moment there was nothing he felt less like doing than calming down. His leg kicked out of its own accord, connecting hard with something that grunted in pain but it was almost immediately lost under the onslaught of agony that move unleashed, setting his bones ablaze under too-small skin. He cried out, desperately trying to suck in air.

_“Jesse. Stop.”_

Even dead, McCree would know that voice. Genji had been at his side since the early days, one of the first faces in Overwatch he knew and the second person to matter to him once Deadlock was nothing but ashes on the wind. If McCree had been the sort of person to believe that he deserved friends or family, then Genji was all of that and more, and as soon as he heard his voice, McCree felt his body go still and limp at the request. 

“ _That’s better,_ ” Genji said again, and it was only then that McCree’s overworked brain realised he was speaking Spanish - poorly at that, as the vowels twisted up in his Japanese accent, but unmistakable Jesse’s mother tongue. It had been an old game of theirs when they were still young enough for such things - McCree would teach Genji Spanish, and would receive Japanese lessons for his troubles. He hadn’t realised Genji still remembered. _“You’re in the Orca. You got hurt, but Angela is taking care of you. You’re safe here, okay?”_

He thought he might have nodded at that. Everything was feeling a bit wavery and indistinct again, but he pushed back against the darkness, determined to get his eyes open and his brain back online. He needed to apologise - to all of them - loudly and for as long as they would let him, if only so they would know that he understood what he’d inadvertently put them all through. 

It took a long time - he couldn’t be sure how much time, exactly, lost as he was - but eventually he managed to convince his eyes that being open probably wasn’t so bad if they just gave it a shot. He got one open just long enough to see Genji’s faceplate looming directly over his head before a binding penlight was shone directly into his cornea. 

He snapped his eye closed with a curse. “Shit, Angie,” he mumbled, twitching up a limp hand to try to rub at the offended lens before giving up on the attempt before his elbow had even made it off the biobed. 

“Sorry,” she said from somewhere beside him. “How are you feeling?”

He groaned low in his throat in response. Now that he wasn’t moving the pain had definitely eased up some, but he had a sense that if he so much as twitched his finger wrong he would end up back in that dark lake for the foreseeable future. Still, he was alive and that wasn’t nothing. 

Although, on that note-

“Why the fuck am I not dead?”

There was a pause, during which McCree was almost certain Genji and Angela were having one of those silent conversations of theirs over his head but couldn’t muster the energy to be mad about, before Angela’s light footsteps retreated and Genji’s hand landed on his shoulder. “Lena found you unconscious in that alley. We- We don’t know exactly what happened, but she thinks she saw Reaper leaving when she arrived.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” he agreed softly, but he knew even as he said it that it didn’t. Reaper had been there, sure, but even with Tracer’s time bending abilities, there was no way she could have gotten there quickly enough to stop him from turning McCree’s skull inside out. 

Genji seemed to sense his hesitation. “What happened?”

He huffed a strained laugh, then instantly regretted it. “Got stupid. Didn’t see him coming.”

“That’s not like you.”

“All make mistakes.”

There was a long enough pause for McCree to know that Genji wanted him to sense his disbelief. “Did he say anything?” He said instead of pressing him on it.

“Nothing important. Gloated a bit. Showed me his face.” He was suddenly very glad he still had his eyes closed when he felt them burn with sudden, savage grief. “He’s a mess.”

“But he didn’t kill you.” Genji said it very softly, so quietly that McCree hadn’t been sure he’d heard him immediately. Abruptly, he was reminded of the rage-fuelled monster made of metal he’d first met, the one that had only seemed to be tempered by Reyes’ steady, sure support, a guiding hand always on his shoulder that let him know when he could unleash himself on their enemies and when he needed to tuck it all back inside and pretend to be human. Genji was a good man today because he’d had mentors like Zenyatta, like Angie, like _McCree_ , but he’d only managed to stay a man at all because of Gabe. Maybe McCree wasn’t the only one who knew what it was truly like to mourn for the man that made you. 

“But he didn’t kill me,” he agreed, just as quietly. “He could have. Easily. Had his gun to my head before Tracer was anywhere close. Decided not to, I guess.” He paused, blinking open his eyes again so that he could see Genji. “What do you suppose that means?”

He sucked in a breath through the vents in his suit and held it. “I don’t know,” he said at length. 

Neither of them wanted to admit to the hope they could both feel threatening to flame into life between them. Gabriel Reyes was dead and gone, consigned to the empty grave bearing his name at Arlington, and he was never coming back - they both knew it as surely as they knew how badly they had managed to fail him all those years ago. But. 

But Reaper hadn’t taken the shot. 

Maybe, just maybe, _Gabe_ hadn’t taken the shot. 

It was likely nothing - an incomprehensible whim of someone with prior for trying to mess with their heads - but McCree was alive because of it and that wasn’t nothing. It _wasn’t._ Slowly, Genji’s metal-plated hand crept onto the biobed and slipped into McCree’s, squeezing his fingers together gently in a silent request for support. Jesse gripped at him with the little strength he had left, tight enough to hurt if he’d not had the exoskeleton. 

_You didn’t take the shot,_ he told the ghost lingering at the brink of his mind. _I was wide open and unconscious and dead and you didn’t take the shot. You know better than anyone the damage I’m capable of wreaking on Talon and you let me live._

Reaper wouldn’t have done it - couldn’t have done it. But Reyes would have saved him, once upon a time. 

They were still hours out from Gibraltar and McCree knew that when they got there he’d have to face Angela’s tests and treatments, and spend his time locked in the infirmary, and at some point have to try to explain any of this shit to Winston but- that was later. Right now, he could squeeze Genji’s hand and remember the father they’d both lost. 

**Author's Note:**

> I may rewrite this eventually into something better but I'm just posting it as is now so I can get it off my WIP list.


End file.
